Thaddeus Ross (Earth-11584)
History "I'll be frank with you Captain Rogers, the Avengers need to be brought into the fold. For too long you and other organizations like you have been accountable only to yourselves. That changes now. The world cannot and will not tolerate this kind of cowboy hero action anymore." It should be noted that, as of Iron Man 4, it has been revealed that Thaddeus Ross is being impersonated by someone or something. When this impersonation began or what effect it has had on the timeline is currently unknown, so this is presented simply as the facts as they are known. Born in Springfield, Missouri in 1949, '''General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross '''would grow up in a poor working class family, the oldest of six children. His father, a drunk, drifted between jobs while his mother worked in an office and at a diner in an attempt to support the family. Ross would overcome these early hardships and rise up to become one of the most important military figures in the second half of the twentieth century. Enlisting in the military after high school, Ross served two tours of duty as a Private in Vietnam, before being recommended for OCS in 1970. From there he would quickly rise up the ranks as a fighter and military commander, being promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in 1982. At some point he was married to an unknown woman, who gave birth to his daughter Elizabeth in 1977. It is unknown when Ross and his wife separated, but she had died sometime prior to 2003. After being promoted to the rank of Major General in 1992 following Operation Desert Storm, Ross began looking into old military files concerning human enhancement. He received off the books funding from the CIA to begin exploring the revival of Project Rebirth, a WWII era Super Soldier Project spearheaded by the SSR (the forerunner to modern day SHIELD). Ross obtained the original notes used by Dr. Erskine, and from them was able to come up with a rudimentary formula. In 2001 he enlisted the help of his daughter and her then boyfriend, later fiance, Dr. Bruce Banner. Ross didn't trust Banner implicitly, and thus led him and Betty to believe that their research was for medical purposes only. In 2004, Banner seemingly reached a breakthrough involving gamma radiation. Unwilling to wait, he tested the formula out on himself and exposed himself to a gamma ray burst. This mutated his DNA, transforming him into the Hulk. Powerless to stop the rampaging beast, Ross could only watch as the Hulk inadvertantly hurt Betty and escaped military custody. Discredited to some degree, Ross formed a task force to find the Hulk and harness the weapon he had created. For four years, Ross tracked every lead he could on the Hulk, but wound up coming up empty. Then in late 2007, he got a connection between Banner and a computer they had been monitoring at Empire State University, tracking Banner to a logging camp in the Yukon. Ross assembled his team and dispatched them to the Yukon, neglecting to tell the team leader, Emil Blonsky, exactly what he was up against, only telling him that Banner was far more dangerous than he seemed. The apprehension attempt went pear-shaped, however, and several members of the team were hurt in the process. Blonsky spoke frankly to the general about needing to know what they were up against, something that Ross eventually concluded was accurate. He briefed the Captain on the Super Soldier Project of World War II and Banner's part in revitilizing it. When Blonsky showed interest in the prototype serum that Ross and his team had developed, Ross couldn't resist using Blonsky as a human guinea pig. He then set out to New York to track down his daughter, in case Banner attempted to contact her. Tracking the Hulk to New York city, Ross first confronted him in Long Island, using sonic cannons to lure the Hulk into a confrontation with the newly improved Blonsky. While the confrontation still resulted in Hulk getting away, Ross had gained a dramatic tactical advantage and had gauged the abilities of Blonsky as well (also learning of Banner's connection to his cousin, district attorney Jennifer Walters. It also led to his decision to give Blonsky another shot of his Super Soldier Serum. A couple of days later they tracked Banner to Empire State University and the laboratory of Dr. Samuel Sterns. There, Ross finally succeeded at capturing Banner and taking him into custody, hoping to unlock the secrets of the Hulk. Doing so, however, caused him to become further estranged from his daughter, who declared herself to be dead to him. Ross' victory was short-lived, however, as Blonsky underwent another procedure, transforming himself into the Abomination and beginning to destroy Harlem. Ross was forced to release Banner, as the Hulk was the only man who could stop Abomination. The two decimated much of Harlem, but eventually Hulk subdued Blonsky and allowed him to be taken into custody. Hulk, however, disappeared into the ether once more. Ross' actions earned him greater scrutiny from the United States military, forcing him into retirement. Ross was also informed that SHIELD would take over the search for the Hulk, though that was merely cover to protect Banner from further reprisals from Ross. Thunderbolt Ross didn't take his "demotions" as he referred to them lying down. Using his connections, he arranged for the release of computer hacker and armored supervillain Leila Davis to be released into his custody following her refusal to join in a prison break led by Taskmaster. He then recruited several other criminals: Simon Williams, Luke Cage, Donald Clendenon, Karla Sofen and Paul Ebersol, to receive similar treatment. Forming a task force of his own, he first attempted to show the viability of his team by sending them after the afore mentioned Taskmaster, who had escaped capture following the Battle of New York. When the team, newly christened the Thunderbolts by the media, succeeded in this task, he attempted to use them to force Bruce Banner out of the care of Tony Stark, although with far less success. The Thunderbolts were nearly killed by a Dr. Franklin Hall, who had become the super-villain Graviton due to collateral damage during one of their fights. When the Thunderbolts disobeyed his orders and went after Hall, he attempted to have the rearrested only to be shot down by SHIELD, who had advocated for pardons for them all (particularly Cage, who had been wrongly convicted anyway.) Defeated and humiliated again, Ross was forced to endure a lengthy tongue-lashing from Jennifer Walters for attempting to capture Banner once again. Ross remained on the periphery of SHIELD, though, waiting for an opportunity to circumvent the leadership of director Nick Fury, who was subject to a series of missteps ranging from the failure of Project Insight to the issues with Ultron. Prior to this, he was summoned to a meeting with Tony Stark, the Inhuman Black Bolt, Dr. Stephen Strange, Fury and scientist Reed Richards to come to a conclusion about what to do with the Hulk. While Ross eventually agreed to the last ditch protocol of sending the Hulk off world, he had every intention of still capturing Banner alive. Following Banner's actions in Johannesburg, as well as Fury's controversial dalliance with the Red Skull, Ross convinced the World Security Council to install him as the new head of SHIELD, turning their attentions to finding Banner, who had disappeared once again after the Battle of Sokovia. Also, Ross was instrumental in trying to recreate the Pym Particle to create a new Ant-Man, commissioning SHIELD scientist Eric O'Grady to perform the task and pressuring both Hank Pym and Bill Foster to release their research. O'Grady succeeded in duplicating the Ant-Man technology, but the process changed his brain chemistry and made him unstable. The process was lost, however, due to the interference of Pym, his daughter Hope, and a new Ant-Man by the name of Scott Lang, when they imploded the SHIELD research facility where it was being conducted as well as causing O'Grady's death. It wasn't long before Ross, through SHIELD agent Glenn Talbot, found Banner hiding away in the Nevada desert. Despite condemning Talbot's tactics of bringing in Samuel Sterns on the project, and being chastised by his daughter for injecting himself in Banner's life once again, Ross was nevertheless pleased when Banner was tracked down after his initial escape and taken prisoner by SHIELD. Ross was prepared to turn Banner over to authorities for his actions in Johannesburg, assuming that he couldn't find a way to control the Hulk through the gamma suppressor. However Sterns chose that moment to turn on SHIELD, wanting to steal the Hulk's strength for himself. After setting loose Calvin Zabo as a Hulk-like creature, Ross could only watch as the freed Hulk (due to the intervention of a mutated Jennifer Walters) and Zabo began destroying Las Vegas. Hoping to save face, Ross contacted Tony Stark to implement the final protocol for the Hulk, but not before Ross' daughter Betty was killed by Sterns in crossfire. It was then that the final protocol was ennacted, sending Hulk off-world to another planet. Despite his failures, Ross would continue to serve as SHIELD director at this time. In the meantime, he managed to convince several world leaders (including US President Matthew Ellis, due to his experiences with AIM) of the need for the super-powered individuals of the world to be brought under the jurisdiction of the World Security Council and SHIELD. To that end he helped write and spearhead the Avenegers Protocols, putting the Avengers Organization (and other super organizations, such as the Fantastic Four) directly under his pervue. Support for this initiative was increased following an incident involving civilian casualties in Alexandria, Egypt. Ross sent Tony Stark to convince the Avengers of the need for this protocol, and got some of them on board as a result. At a ceremony to sign the accords in Vienna Austria, attended by several heads of state (including Wakandan king T'Chaka), the delegates were attacked by the resurgent Winter Soldier, aka Bucky Barnes. Ross ordered Stark and his team to immediately seek out Barnes and anyone else who might try to help him, which eventually included Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers. In Budapest, Ross watched grimly as Captain America became a fugitive from the law in order to save his friend. In Budapest, Ross tried to keep a lockdown on Barnes, Rogers and Wilson, while Stark tried to mend fences with the latter two. However Helmut Zemo, under the guise of being a psychologist to evaluate Bucky, snuck in and activated the Winter Soldier's mental programming, causing him to break free of his restraints. In the aftermath of the escape, Ross gave Stark 48 hours to find Rogers and Barnes and bring them back to justice. Unbeknownst to him that would also include several other current and former Avengers on Rogers' team, including the Maximoffs, Clint Barton and Scott Lang, while Tony recruited the hitherto unknown Peter Parker to help in the fight in the Budapest airport. When Stark was successful in capturing most of the fugitives (minus Bucky and Rogers, who escaped thanks to intervention from the Black Widow), Ross had all of them transferred to custody at the supermax SHIELD prison known as the Raft. A few days later, however, Ross tried to call Stark to help secure the prison when Steve Rogers arrived and broke out his team members single handedly. Ross continued the search for these so called "Secret Avengers", but did not manage to capture any of them (though Lang turned himself in in exchange for house arrest). When the Mandarin launched his attacks on the world, Ross subverted a long-standing SHIELD protocol of not negotiating with terrorists and began catering to the Warlord's demands to try and avert a nuclear disaster. Ross first sent Tony Stark and Vision to try and negotiate, and then unilaterally decided to turn over the Vision to the Mandarin as a ransom payment, despite the risks involving the Infinity Stone Vision carried with him. Ross' unilateral decision making and his constant failures finally proved to be his undoing, as he was relieved as SHIELD director by Agent Phil Coulson (who's resurrection even Ross didn't know about, despite being the director) and replaced on an interim basis by Tony Stark himself. Ross then disappeared from view, not even showing up during the Sakarran incident when Hulk returned from space, seeking his jailers. Powers & Abilities * Military Strategist: Having graduated from West Point with High Honors, Thunderbolt Ross is a master at military strategy and planning out patterns of attack. He is capable of coordinating multiple forces at once in the aim of completing a stated objective. * Marksmanship: Though it has never been displayed, it can be assumed that Ross' marksmanship is on par with most above-average human beings, given the rank insignia on his uniform. * Covert Operations: In accordance with his military training and being the director of SHIELD, Ross is fully qualified to run any number of covert operations at any given time. Weaknesses Due to his daughter's involvement with its creation, Ross has an almost unhealthy obsession with capturing Bruce Banner, AKA The Hulk. This is to the detriment of many of his other ideas, including using the personal Army of the Thunderbolts he collected for this purpose, and immediately directing SHIELD to find Hulk following his takeover after Age of Ultron. As revealed in Iron Man 4, some one or something is apparently impersonating Thunderbolt Ross. What the status of the real general is is unclear at this point. Appearances Ross appears in the following films within the Earth-11584 continuity. In all cases, he is portrayed by actor William Hurt. * The Incredible Hulk (2008) * The Avengers (2012) * Thunderbolts (2013) * Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) * Ant-Man (2015) * The Incredible Hulk 2 (2015) * Captain America: Civil War (2016) * Iron Man 4 (2016) * World War Hulk (2017) only Category:Earth-11584 Characters Category:Bad Characters Category:SHIELD members Category:Earth-11584